Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
I am finally reading Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (and am ashamed it's taken this long). I recommend it to any serious conservative. Today I ran across a passage that makes Burke look prophetic. Speaking of the French National Assembly after the beginning of the revolution but long before the Terror or even King Louis was deposed, Burke said this about the members of the Assembly:
Among them, indeed, I saw some of known rank, some of shining talents; but of any practical experience in the state, not one was to be found. The best were only men of theory.
Isn't this a perfect description of the Executive Branch under Obama? Some "shining talents" (if that means academic credentials). But the best of them have no real experience in government or even in the real world. The best of them are people only of theory: and that theory is (as Richard Weaver called it) the "hysterical optimism" of the utopian progressive.
Burke believed in the old wisdom--but it remains true.
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Apr '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
Best. Ricochet. Headline. Ever.
Jun '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
Great post!
Amazing how Burke remains relevant 230 years later.
Jul '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
This admin suffers from the arrogance of intellect. 8% with real world experience? That is just pitiful.
I am reminded of the "Foundation" series where some politician was thrusting forth his opinions on a subject yet never doing his own research, just reading other peoples ideas and work.
"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. "
Edited on July 19, 2011 at 7:30am— Isaac Asimov
Aug '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
I see your Burke, and raise you a Tocqueville. From The Old Regime and the Revolution:
The philosophes readily acquired a disgust for old things and for tradition, and they were naturally led to want to rebuild contemporary society according to an entirely new plan, that each of them drew from the inspiration of reason alone. The very situation of these writers prepared them to like general and abstract theories of government and to trust in them blindly. At the almost infinite distance of practice in which they lived, no experience tempered the ardors of their nature; nothing warned them of the obstacles that existing facts might place before even the most desirable reforms; they didn't have any idea of the dangers which always accompany even the most necessary revolutions. They did not even have the least suspicion of them; for the complete absence of political freedom had made the world of action not merely badly known to them, but invisible. (from Book III, chapter 1, "How Around the Middle of the 18th Century Intellectuals Became the Country's Leading Politicians, and the Effects Which Resulted from This")
Jun '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
OK. I see your Toqueville (which I really liked) and raise you a Hayek:
“Individualism is an attitude of humility before this social process and of tolerance of other opinions and is the exact opposite of that intellectual hubris which is the root of the demand for comprehensive direction of the social process.” (Road to Serfdom)
And an Ortega y Gasset:
“That is what State intervention leads to: the people are converted into fuel to feed the mere machine that is the State. The skeleton eats up the flesh around it. The scaffolding becomes the owner and the tenant of the house.” (Revolt of the Masses)
This is fun.
Aug '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
tabula rasa
OK. I see your Toqueville (which I really liked) and raise you a Hayek:
“Individualism is an attitude of humility before this social process and of tolerance of other opinions and is the exact opposite of that intellectual hubris which is the root of the demand for comprehensive direction of the social process.” (Road to Serfdom)
This is fun. · Jul 18 at 9:47am
Burke, Shmerk. Hayek, Shmayek. I got plenty o' Tocqueville:
"This particular form of tyranny, ...we call democratic despotism. No more hierarchy within society, no more classes, no more fixed ranks; a people composed of almost identical and entirely equal individuals, this jumbled mass recognized as the sole legitimate sovereign, but carefully deprived of all the faculties which might permit it to direct and even to oversee its own government. Above society, a single official, charged with doing everything in its name, without consulting it. To control it, a public reason without means of expression; to stop it, revolution, and not laws: in theory, a subordinate agent; in fact, a master."
Jul '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
tabula rasa....don't call his bluff
Aug '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
I'm reminded of a famous comment by the recently-deceased former Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Garrett Fitzgerald:
Edited on July 19, 2011 at 1:38am"That's fine in practice, but will it work in theory?"
Dec '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
I feel there's a Bugs Bunny quote out there somewhere that fits perfectly in this, but I just can't find it...
Jun '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
I'm holding something back: The entire Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
Jul '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
[slipping tabula rasa a card under the table]
"As for the hopeful: it does not seem to make any difference who it is that is seized with a wild hope-whether it be an enthusiastic intellectual, a land-hungry farmer, a get-rich-quick speculator, a sober merchant or industrialist, a plain workingman or a noble lord-they all proceed recklessly with the present, wreck it if necessary, and create a new world."
Eric Hoffer
The True Believer
Jul '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
[sorry.]
Edited on July 19, 2011 at 3:47amJun '10
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
Jimmy Carter: [slipping tabula rasa a card under the table]
"As for the hopeful: it does not seem to make any difference who it is that is seized with a wild hope-whether it be an enthusiastic intellectual, a land-hungry farmer, a get-rich-quick speculator, a sober merchant or industrialist, a plain workingman or a noble lord-they all proceed recklessly with the present, wreck it if necessary, and create a new world."
Eric Hoffer
The True Believer · Jul 18 at 6:30pm
Take that, Pippen.
Jan '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
By an odd coincidence, I was reading Burke last month, and posted something about him on my blog. He predicted the rise of a Napoleon, too:
"In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who...possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account....But the moment in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the army is your master - the master of your king, the master of your Assembly, the master of your whole republic."
He wrote that in 1790 - and in 1799, two years after Burke's death, what did the French get? Napoleon Bonaparte.
Mar '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
tabula rasa:
Isn't this a perfect description of the Executive Branch under Obama?
Unfortunately, this is increasingly a description of government as a whole, because so many of our federal elites comes from the Ivy schools, and the Ivy schools have long surrendered to Theory. Institutions like the Kennedy School at Harvard basically keep recycling people that have never done anything but "public service" and academia. Even in some of the more practical departments... architecture comes to mind... many star instructors haven't actually built much, but they publish fabulous concepts in all the right journals. They're just aping their heroes like Corbusier in this case. Corbu, compared to his peers, didn't build much, but he was a god in the classroom.
Apr '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
I got no Bugs but here's Homer:
"Marge, I agree with you -- in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." -- Homer Simpson
Jul '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
tabula rasa
I'm holding something back: The entire Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. · Jul 18 at 4:57pm
Much like Xerxes relied upon his Immortals or Napoleon upon his Old Guard you shall win any argument with a rational man by unleashing Adam Smith. If we actually had rational opponents to debate with these days that is.
Edited on July 19, 2011 at 7:17amMar '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
One-Eyed Jack: Great post!
Amazing how Burke remains relevant 230 years later. · Jul 17 at 6:40pm
Considering how our rot is cultural as well as in the structure of government, I'd say we need Burke more than ever.
Jul '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
"If it's the Captain's Mess. let him clean it up"
"The way I run this thing you'd think I knew something about it"
The mighty Mr Bunny himself. Yet I have another to describe our political leaders.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
— Frédéric Bastiat
Mar '11
Re: Edmund Burke Slams the Obama Administration
I'm afraid I haven't read Burke yet - I'm not a serious conservative - but I know Mark Levin speaks highly of him, and Levin's "Liberty and Tyranny" is the short version, appropriate for the predicament we are in - all we need to know.
Edited on July 19, 2011 at 11:06am